The teachers strike in Newton, Massachusetts, will enter second full week after no agreement was reached over the weekend to get students back into classrooms, while tensions are running high as both sides accuse each other of not bargaining in good faith.
Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced Sunday night that classes will be cancelled for a seventh day due to the illegal strike by the Newton Teachers Association (NTA), saying the City of Newton simply cannot afford what the union is asking for without causing great harm to the city's residents.
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"I know residents are frustrated, angry and sad. I am as well," Fuller wrote in her update. "The Newton School Committee and I desperately want to reach agreement on a contract that pays our educators competitively and is sustainable for our schools and the city."
"We know that the Newton Public Schools are the magnet attracting families to Newton. Our schools are our crown jewels. And, our teachers are what make our schools and community a great place to raise a family," she added.
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Fuller said she continues to call for the two sides to negotiate in good faith on a new, competitive contract while students are in school and learning.
"There is a reason the law in Massachusetts requires teachers to be in the classroom while we negotiate. This law protects our children. It is essential that our schools be open," she wrote. I am increasingly worried that the union leadership is losing sight of the fact that their decision to strike is really, really hurting youngsters. As one parent wrote, removing the school routine is wreaking havoc; children are feeling isolated at home; cancelling extracurriculars is removing joy and hurting mental health; high schoolers are feeling anxious and stressed out."
Fuller claimed the union is demanding raises that they know the city cannot afford, saying that if they agree to the union's demands, they would have to lay off teachers and/or other city employees.
"Similar to the superintendent, I cannot endorse a union contract that makes cuts to our current level of school/city services or to our current school/city employees to fund it," she said.
"Our community weighed in on additional funding for schools on the override vote in March 2023. Newton voted 53% to 47% not to increase our taxes. The union strike does not change that reality. We must live within our current revenues," the mayor said. "While I am committed to trying again and putting another override proposal in front of our voters, we can’t sign this contract counting on the next override passing."
Fuller claimed the Newton School Committee is agreeing to a lot of the NTA proposals and presenting compromises.
"The union is striking illegally and holding our kids’ class time as a bargaining chip. I think they hope that by making this negotiation personal and inflicting a lot of pain on our children, parents/caregivers, and elected officials, the school committee and/or the city will bend and cut services, programs or employees from within NPS or other city departments. In effect, the NTA (and the MTA) are bringing hard ball national politics to Newton. They are using a 'take it or leave it' approach at the bargaining table. That is disappointing and undermines the good faith bargaining process required by law," she said.
Fuller said they will continue to negotiate in good faith but that they can't and won't kick the can down the road only to face a fiscal crisis in the future.
"We are unwilling to sign an unsustainable contract that results in teacher layoffs. Similarly, we are unwilling to lay off police, firefighters and other municipal employees to pay for a contract we cannot afford," she said. "The Newton School Committee and the mayor are elected to do what is best for our entire community, now and in the future, even when it is hard."
"I know what is most important to everyone is getting schools open. Our students deserve that. We know that. We are doing everything that we can, within our financial means, to have our students in school," she said, putting the ball in the union's court.
"The union leadership can decide right this moment to open the schools. If they do, the school committee and I are committed to continue negotiating with great urgency," she concluded.
The teachers union said earlier Sunday it was deeply disappointed that the school committee bargaining team rejected a package proposal that would have reopened schools on Monday.
"The NTA presented reasonable, affordable and necessary proposals rooted in honest and fair compromise. The NTA bargaining team made clear that the offer presented today would accomplish two things – address the concerns raised by the School Committee with previous proposals and would meet the threshold of what will ratify with the members of the NTA," the union said in a statement Sunday afternoon.
"School Committee Chair Chris Brezski, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller and Superintendent Anna Nolin had an opportunity to end this strike," the union continued. "They failed to seize that opportunity."
The NTA said union members will be back on picket lines Monday, continuing to advocate for what students and educators need and deserve.
Newton Public Schools released a statement shortly after saying both the NTA and school committee bargaining teams presented comprehensive new proposals this afternoon.
According to the district's statement, the teachers union presented their first revised COLA proposal since mid-December and their first package proposal during this strike.
"The NTA’s revised proposal showed progress but was neither affordable nor sustainable," the statement read. "Accepting it wholesale would have required a reduction in force of more than 70 valued educators and support staff throughout the life of the contract."
The school committee presented a counter proposal a little over two hours later that included increases to COLA, agreement on parental leave, increases to the wages of all paraprofessionals, and a commitment by the superintendent to increase the number of social workers across the district, as well as a revised transition to offset increases to health insurance costs.
According to the district's statement, "the NTA bargaining team stated their package proposal 'was take it or leave it,' and walked out of the room without any discussion or negotiation."
"This was not bargaining in good faith," they added. "We remain at the Ed Center and await the NTA’s return to the bargaining table, so we can get our students back to school."
Fuller said she had one goal on Sunday -- to work with the school committee negotiating team to settle a contract and get students back in the classroom on Monday morning.
School and city officials held a press conference later Sunday evening, reiterating that they believe the union is not bargaining in good faith.
"This is a dreadful night," Fuller lamented. "It is not what the school committee and I expected or were working for all weekend and over the last many months."
The mayor said they are offering teachers a contract "that honors them, honors their valuable service, and is in line with peer school districts."
"In these hard hours we will stay true to our core principals of prioritizing the budget for the Newton Public Schools, providing competitive wages and benefits to our valued school and city employees and having sustainable budgets," the mayor said. "We cannot make financially damaging decisions that means laying off employees to fund unsustainable higher salaries and benefits."
According to Brezski, the school committee hasn't heard from the union since they walked out of the room Sunday.
"We're still here, all we need is a partner to negotiate with," he said, adding they remain ready and willing to negotiate.
The school committee chair also shared that they're $26 million apart over the life of the contract and that he's surprised this is taking so long to negotiate, noting that this could have been solved in two days -- any two days over the last six months -- if they had a partner to negotiate with.
The president of the NTA claims that number is actually $15 million -- not $26 million.
"They're saying they can't afford the $15 million difference between our proposal and their proposal? Bologna. Bologna. It's misinformation. She's lying to the public," Michael Zilles said.
At the teachers union press conference about two hours later, members slammed Fuller and Brezski for their comments, saying they're only interested in winning.
"It breaks my heart to come out here every single night and tell all of you that Newton's supposed leaders, Ruthanne Fuller and Chris Brezski and their school committee are preventing children from returning to school. Every single day, the negotiation team sits in here, and asks ourselves whether we can make the mayor and school committee see reason. If only we could find the right words to say in the right order with the right tone, they would understand. But for 16 months, and especially for the 10 days of the strike, Fuller and Brezski have shown us who they are," Newton teacher Ryan Normandin said. "We have tried everything, everything to bargain with them. We have worked on individual proposals, we have asked the school committee to stand with us against Mayor Fuller's austerity budgeting. We presented them with a complete package of proposals that addresses the concerns the school committee had previously raised, would meet the threshold of what our membership would ratify, and would return our kids to school tomorrow."
"We did everything they asked...and they said no. worse, they went through our package, and they accepted everything that was conciliatory, everything that we were giving up, and they plastered rejected on everything else," Normandin continued.
Normandin went on to criticize the mayor further, claiming she hasn't been involved in the negotiations like she said.
"If the school committee was interested in settling this contract why didn't they accept this proposal? If they were interested in settling this contract, why does Chris Brezski refuse every day to invite the mayor to attend negotiations? Why does Mayor Fuller stand in there at the press conference before this and say we are negotiating, we are committed, we, we, we, and she sits in her office and does nothing. She hides from us, she hides from her constituents. She comes up for this to say that she's working hard. She does nothing. She is not invested in getting our kids back to school."
"If they were interested in settling this contract, why are they using their access to virtually every household via email to mischaracterize what is happening during bargaining? Why are they posting propaganda on official NPS accounts that families rely on for vital information like district news and grab and go meals for children?"
"The school committee never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. They don't," he said. "And it kills me to say that's because Mayor Fuller and Chris Brezski are more interested in winning than they are in bargaining."
"If we offered to work for $10 a day, they'd reject it and say they can't afford it. They'd say we're bargaining in bad faith when we're in court but their own lawyer testified we were bargaining in good faith and a judge reaffirmed that. Their interest isn't in a contract, it isn't in their students. It's in winning."
Normandin ended his emotional speech Sunday night saying the "educators of this city are doing everything we possibly can to stem the leaks to stop this ship from going under, we just wish that Mayor Fuller, Chris Brezski, and the school committee would stop trying to sink it."
"Until they do, until they start bargaining seriously, our educators will be back on the picket lines tomorrow with our families and with our students and with our community members as we continue to advocate for what our students and educators need and deserve because we know that all of them are behind us," he said. "We are fighting for better schools."
Newton students have already missed six days of school, during which time the union has accrued $375,000 in court-imposed fees for the strike. The union was set to incur another $50,000 in fines if no deal was reached by 8 p.m. Sunday.
Some people argue it's the students who are paying the price.
Both the school committee and teachers union did stay late Sunday night to continue bargaining past their usual cut off but there is still no deal, so they'll be back at it again Monday morning.
A teachers rally is scheduled for 1 p.m.
There's no word if there will be another court hearing on Monday.
